Abstract
The surgical robot has been demonstrated to have useful applications in urologic,
gynecologic, cardiac, general, and endocrine surgery. The development of robotic surgery
has enhanced the precision and control of the surgeon in minimally invasive surgical
situations specific to these specialties and, more recently, has been applied to the
treatment of oropharyngeal tumors in the form of transoral robotic surgery (TORS).
The elimination of the need for lip- and mandible-splitting approaches has allowed
a reassessment of surgical options for the treatment of tumors that have until recently
been primarily addressed nonoperatively with chemoradiation. The TORS approach has
created the need to adapt current reconstructive options to robotic technology to
manage the resultant tissue defects and to assess and compare the effectiveness of
these procedures. This report details our early experience with the use of robot-assisted
free tissue transfer for management of soft tissue defects of the oropharynx.
Keywords
robotic - TORS - free tissue transfer
